"This is all your fault Ruven, why'd we have to follow that lady or whatever it was!" Adonis yelled.
"What do you mean?! You agreed to come along, I was fine with going alone!" I said.
"Yeah next time I'm leaving you behind! I don't wanna get chased by the whole cavalry! What were you thinking?!" He yelled.
"Forget about it, I'll explain later! Let's just focus on running away!" I said.
So you might be wondering what happened, well, let me start back from the beginning.
It was the usual day, I was supposed to go to school, attend lectures, come back home, sleep and repeat.
I was leaving the house, I got on my bike, and pedalled as hard as I could.
As I was wondering about how depressing my life could get, more than how it already was, I saw something unusual in the woods.
On the route from my house to my school, there's a fairly vast forest which is refreshing to travel through everyday.
It's a bit creepy and... What's the word?
Eerie? Unnerving? Maybe both of them.
But that's the thrill of it, the thrill of thinking something mysterious is within the forest, lurking.
Besides, I'm not always alone, my neighbour Dawn also travels on the same road.
I'm getting a bit side-tracked, hmm.
Anyways, that day, when I was passing through the forest, I saw something odd. A white apparition or a silhouette of a lady wearing white clothes near one of the trees.
At first I was a bit scared, I was about to peddle away, but I had an inner feeling. Something within me was just begging to go, and so I did.
School was boring anyways, if I were to die, I'd rather die enjoying the thrill. It's not like I don't want a normal life, I just want to experience a thrill sometimes too.
Anyways, I went into the forest, following the white apparition.
For brief moments, that lady would disappear, then reappear.
Everytime, when she was within my hand's reach, she would turn around and disappear and appear somewhere where one could barely see.
I couldn't see her as well, I was sensing her. Because of my ThunderBurst ability, I can emit electric waves which allows me to sense people, or things which can affect electric waves.
After a while, I was getting tired, I heavily considered just turning around and going back to bed, but after a bit of tail-chasing, I reached a place that looked like some kind of an altar.
When I approached the altar, I laid eyes upon an armor without a helmet. The armor laid flat on a ledge and it seemed to be holding a sword on the torso. The white apparition appeared behind the table and gestured in way as if she is offering me it.
I looked around and pointed at myself
Me?
She nodded.
I was hesitant at first, but I took the sword in my hand.
It was an extremely rusty blade. But once I held it and swinged it around a bit, I felt like I was being driven insane.
It felt as if my mind was being torn apart by what's whatever was in that sword.
I fainted.
When I woke up again, the armor disappeared and the sword seemed like it newly forged.
But that wasn't it.
Before I noticed the sword, I laid my eyes upon the beauty of my neighbour, Dawn Okada.
She's a really pretty girl. She wears glasses, she's cute and good academically, she's also a witch.
As much as I think she is pretty though, I don't really feel anything for her.
As I regained my vision a bit, I realised that I was sleeping on her lap.
I sprung right back up, and ended up bumping her head with mine.
She let out a cute squeal, followed by intense yelling,"Ow! I wait here for an hour waiting for you to regain consciousness, and this is how you repay me?? So much for following you into the forest!"
"Well, why'd you follow me anyways?" I asked
She pouted and said, "It was a bit strange for you to walk into the forest alone, and I saw a flash of white walking into the forest, so I decided to follow you."
After that, she just yelled at me and warned me to be careful. She looked at my sword and asked if it was mine. Without any answer in mind, I just nodded.
Hearing that, she asked me about what happened, but I decided not to tell her the truth.
I ended up telling her that I was training and I slipped, to which she asked me about the white apparition.
I played dumb and avoided that topic.
I left her off at her home and then walked to mine.
After a while, when I reached home, I took a shower and had a staring contest with the sword.
It was winning.
Anyways, I took the sword in my hand for closer inspection. It has a key patterned onto the sheathe with gold. Wrapped around with a cloth and the words "The Sealer" written in the blade. I felt like I was missing something.
Then it flashed me, I forgot about where the armor went, it had disappeared completely when I was at the altar.
Trying to remember about it, I fell asleep. As I fell asleep, I had a dream, but it was no ordinary dream.
I was back in my village, right at the moment where my parents were trying to negotiate with the outsiders. I knew what was going to happen, I knew they were going to kill them, yet I couldn't do anything...
I tried to scream but my throat couldn't bare to release the voice. Right as the blinding flash was about to appear again, the village, outsiders and my parents faded away.
I saw two individuals. A knight, and a person dressed like a king. The crest on the royal figure's clothing looked like he was from Electrogon. Perhaps he was one of the past Magistrates?
The other fellow, his armor resembled the headless armor that the sword was holding, except this time it had a helmet. The helmet resembled a skull with a crown on it's head.
"We meet again, SkullCrown. May this be our final encounter." The Royal One said, as he was surrounded by Electricity.
The Knight said nothing, it's name was 'SkullCrown' huh? Interesting..
From the two void filled eyes of the skull, a small beam of light appeared. Smoke releasing from its mouth which ignited into flames. The SkullCrown drew his sword from its sheathe and used his fiery breath on the sword.
As he did, inscribes which looked like symbols on the sword behan glowing, and the SkullCrown stabbed himself in the chest. As he did, a lock with a skull-face appeared behind him, as it absorbed the Royal One's ability and locked it away.
But the Royal One didn't react. He stood there calmly. He brought forth his sword and assumed a stance.
SkullCrown did the same.
As they were about to fight each other, I was jolted awake.
When I woke up and looked around, I couldn't see anyone, yet I felt as if something was in the room with me.
One thing I did have though was a terrible headache. I took some medicine and tried to sleep again, I did not get that dream or anything like that again.
Fast forward to today, I realised that the lady who appeared was the same apparition as that day.
I decided to follow it because I assumed that it would lead me to something, something that can explain what's going on or something that can give me a clue as to what's going to happen.
We followed her from a safe distance, it seemed like she was going to exit the building.
As she did, she changed directions to part of the forest that's in the general direction of my village, or the direction in which it used to be.
"How long is this going to take Ruven, I'm getting bored.." Adonis yawned.
"Why are you bored? I find this quite thrilling." I said.
"We'll, I'm an assassin, most of my job is to finish it all quickly, I don't bother with all that 'waiting for the perfect time to strike' stuff." He said.
Wait wait wait, isn't that the main aspect of an assassin's job?? Some assassin you are.
I didn't say anything, I just nodded and forgot about the conversation.
After we reached at the edge of the forest, she stopped.
We were confused as to what was happening, but the confusion stopped as soon as we heard human voices.
It seemed like anomalites at first, but a quick peek into the forest showed us that they were, indeed real humans.
"Hey Ruven, can you hear me?"
Yeah yeah I can, wait why are you saying that to me, you're right next to-
I saw that his mouth wasn't moving.
Telepathy huh?
"Yeah, Jian gave me an item that lets me communicate with those I trust using telepathy, it's neat. Anyways, I'll go ahead, stuff like this is my part of the job. I'll warn you about what's going on ahead and you can follow after me once I tell you to."
Well, sounds good to me.
Jeez, I thought he just said that he didn't bother with this type of stuff.
"Ruven, you know that I can listen to your thoughts right?"
Shit.
2 minutes later,
"Hey Ruven, I see a bunch of soldiers here, looks like they're in the middle of an excavation process... WAIT! They're creating artificial anomalites?? I've got to see this for myself. Ruven, I'm getting closer to this, let me know if you see something over there."
Things just got serious
Alright, I'll keep a watch. Let me know if you need back-up.
"Nah, there's too many soldiers, even I couldn't handle this. Jian probably could. Because of my ShadowBurst, I can hide in the shadows and disappear in them. I can escape if need be, you cannot."
I mean, I could just use my ThunderBurst to get out of here, but that's not important right now.
"Wait... I see something from the centre of the excavation. It looks like... A skull?"
Huh? Get a closer look, it might not be a skull.
If that is what I think it is...
"What? Also, it looks like some kind of a helmet. A skull helmet?"
Adonis, I need that helmet. Please, I'll explain later. Right now, do anything to get me that helmet.
"Uhhh, sure? Just get ready to run, I might pull off something crazy."
Sure, I'm ready.
"Alrighty, just a little bit of stretching.. ooh, a vine! That works."
"..."
"..."
"I GOT IT! I GOT THE HELMET! RUN! Don't wait for me! I can track you down, just go home."
Alright, let's pray nothing gets us on the way.
As we were running away, I saw my pet raven, Bobby.
Huh? Bobby? What are you doing here? Wait, why am I talking to a bird..
Adonis didn't hear that, he must've stopped using telepathy, I'll stick to the plan and head home.
"Ruven, they might catch me! Send the crow my way and I'll get it to deliver to you the helmet, come back and save me!"
Wait.. what?